Tribal Tattoos and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation Claims

Abstract

This article explores the nature of cultural appropriation claims in settler-colonial states as a possessive claim and a performative utterance that resists oppression. A close study of the contestation that surrounds the facial tattoo created by artist S. Victor Whitmill for former world heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson animates discussion of the nature of cultural appropriation claims. Original empirical fieldwork with Māori tā moko artists and pākehā tattooists and critical perspectives on performativity are used to identify cultural appropriation claims as unstable property claims whose politics exceed the merely possessive.

Keywords: cultural appropriation, tribal tattoos, ta moko, political theory, performativity, rights claims